The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje - A Short Summary & Review

 The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje 

A Short Summary & Review

By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures

A Rite of Fancy Book Recommendation and Review.

A short summary:

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje is a post–World War II novel centered on four damaged lives brought together in an abandoned Italian villa. As the war recedes, the characters, a badly burned patient, a nurse, a thief, and a sapper, linger in its aftermath, carrying physical wounds and unspoken psychological scars.

Through fragmented memories and shifting perspectives, the novel explores love, betrayal, colonialism, and identity. The “English patient” himself becomes a vessel of secrets, his past slowly revealed through recollection rather than confession. The story is less about plot than about the interior lives of people struggling to survive what they’ve already endured.

My favorite quote from the book:

"Sadness is very close to hate."

- Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

Questions to ponder while reading:

Would you still be able to care for another person?

Would you be able to overcome your fear?

My review:

The English Patient is a deeply sad novel, even in its most romantic moments. Love here is never clean or comforting; it is bound up with loss, regret, and irreversible choices. The characters feel profoundly shell-shocked, not just by war, but by what they’ve been asked to live with afterward.

What struck me most was the persistence required of everyone involved. Their continued effort to connect, to care, to hope feels both admirable and exhausting. I’m not sure I would have kept trying under similar circumstances, and that tension gives the novel much of its emotional weight.

This is a lyrical, haunting book that asks whether love and memory are worth the cost they demand. It lingers quietly, refusing easy consolation.

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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life

She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.

You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.

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